We are thrilled to have raised £290,000 for Somerset Wildlife Trust, working in partnership with Quantock, Blackdown and Mendip Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Somerset Wildlife Trust has been protecting and preserving Somerset’s wildlife and wild places for over 50 years. They work to protect wildlife, transform landscapes and put nature back into people’s lives.

Despite Somerset being a rural county, people experiencing mental health problems across Somerset say they need more help to access outdoactivities to help improve their mental health. As a result, the partnership wanted to deliver a project that connects Somerset’s communities with the natural environment to help improve mental health.

We helped them develop an application to the National Lottery Community Fund’s Reaching Communities programme for their Somerset Nature Connections project which will support people with mental health problems to directly access local natural environments.

We are truly delighted the application was successful and thoroughly enjoyed working with the nature partnership.

"We were introduced to Capidale by The Wildlife Trusts, who recommended them on the basis of their successful track record with fundraising and particularly with National Lottery applications. Although we have significant fundraising experience, we had not worked on National Lottery applications and had limited capacity due to other projects in development.

Louise was extremely helpful and knowledgeable on how best to approach the application process and helping keep us informed as the Lottery changed their way of working. Louise helped facilitate the process and highlight where we needed additional focus to strengthen our application, ensuring we told our story to really highlight what the project sought to achieve. Louise was also able to work very flexibly to adapt to our changing timeframes and also to account for the fact we are based at other ends of the country.

I think if we had not worked with Capidale our application would have taken longer and I think it was far stronger as a result."

Jolyon Chesworth, Head of Engagement, Somerset Wildlife Trust